The BriefFont Bureau is a digital type studio and a leading foundry for typeface design. Over the past 22 years, Font Bureau has designed custom typefaces for almost every major American publication, and its retail library includes some of the most celebrated fonts on the market. Font Bureau intend to release a new series based on; art & design movements, designers and artists. You are required to design a pictorial typeface to be included in their Font Bureau Art range.The finished design will be reproduced in black and white but for promotion, Font Bureau have asked to see designs in full colour. If accepted the designs will be used in a number of point sizes, to include 60pt, 72pt and 84pt. You will probably need to design on a larger scale than this but please bear in mind that the reduction to the given sizes will bring attendant problems of legibility. You will also be required to design an advertisement for your new typeface which will be available as a downloadable pdf available from the site and a type specimen page to be included in the Font Bureau One - Line Type Specimens book.You should document all stages of the research and design process, which should demonstrate a critical understanding of the design process. You should be inventive and demonstrate your ingenuity in solving this design challenge. It is important you generate several design solutions, taking your selected justified idea forward to a final refined solution.

In response to this brief I plan to research typography in general initially, to gather ideas and gain a collection of styles and influences for this project. I wil create a mind map of ideas and a mood board of images consisiting of typography to sum up my initial thoughts deriving from the brief. I will then

begin to look at a range of artists - mainly well established, historical artists that were involved in major movements over the centuries, for example Cubism,

Constructivism and Futurism. I will analyse their work to get an understanding of their style, technique and composition, after this I will try and transcribe

their methods into a font of my own creation. The typeface’s that I create will be directly informed by the form, colour and function of the artist’s work, and hopefully will be an accurate representation of their work. I will look at eight

artists in total, experiment with different methods of creating typography. From this I will analyse the success of each typeface and narrow it down to the three

most successful from which I will create the alphabet. The most successfil will then be made into different sizes, produced in full colour and then made into the required specifications; the front cover, the downloadable sheet and

the web page. I will evidence my findings throughout the project in order to document my design process for this brief.

Statement Of Intent

- Broad visual investigation into a range of Artist & Designers.- From your investigations, sample at least three Artists & Designers and demonstrate there suitability for transcription into a typeface.- Design the whole alphabet based on your chosen artist/designer and demonstrate the font working at different sizes.- Evidence the process of contrast and design refinement.Produce both a full colour and black & white version of the typeface.- Produce an advert for the typeface which should include copy which explains the origin and potential use of the font.- Produce a downloadable pdf sample sheet of the font.- Design a front cover for the Font Bureau Specimen book.- Design a web page to promote the font which follow the existing rules of the Font Bureau site.

Essential Requirements

Mind map

A collection of inspirational typography found on the Tumblr radar and assembled into a mood board. Mood Board

Typography = Form - WritingThe visible shape or configuration of something.Typography = Visual GrammarThe arrangement of words and phrases to create well formed sentences in a lan-guage.Typography = Visual CommunicationThe design and use of typefaces as a means of visual communication from callig-raphy to the ever -developing use of digital type is the broad use of the term typog-raphy.However, the art and practice of typography began with the invention of the move-able type and printing press.Typography is sometimes seen as encompassing many separate fields from the type designer who creates letterforms to the graphic designer who selects typeface and arranges them on the page.Typography is the art and technique of arranging type in order to make language visible.The arrangement of type involves the selection of typefaces, point size, line length, leading (line spacing), adjusting the spaces between groups of letters (tracking) and adjusting the space between pairs of letters (kerning).Type design is a closely related craft, which some consider distinct and others part of typography, most typographers do not design typefaces.Typography is performed by typesetters, compositors, typographers, graphic de-signers, art directors, comic book artists, graffiti artists, clerical workers, and any-one else who arranges type for a product. Until the digital age, typography was a specialised occupation.

Typography uses typefaces and the whitespace around and through them to create a whole design.

“Typography is now something everybody does.” - David JuryThe physical embodiment of a collection of letters, numbers, symbols, etc. (whether it’s a case of

metal pieces or a computer file) is a font.When referring to the design of the collection (the way it looks) you call it a typeface.

The type a font is the delivery mechanism, and a typeface is the creative work.The font is what you use, and the typeface is what you see.

Leading is a measure of vertical space between lines. The term is a legacy from the days of hot type (Letterpress), when extra lead was added to increase line space. Thus 12/16 is sometimes

referred to as “four points lead.”The absence of extra leading is called “setting solid” (for example, 10/10). Tighter line spacing is

called “negative leading.”Tracking & Kerning - when a typeface is designed, the designer assigns each character a width

allowing for consecutive characters to be placed on a line without touching.However, the type designer’s intentions may not be the same as your own. Kerning and tracking

are two frequently confused typographical methods for controlling type.

How Typography Works

Here I have continued my typographical research by reading the the book Typography Sketchbooks by Steven Heller and Lita Talarico. I photographed some of the most inspirational forms of type, the ones that are compositionally unique or have a specific attractive quality about them. What strikes me from looking at these sketches is that a lot of the fonts are pictoral as well; using imagery to enhance the design of the lettering is a key theme and one that I will try and integrate into my work to make it more visually interesting.

Steven Heller & Lita TalaricoTYPOGRAPHIC SKETCHBOOKS

John Kane

After looking at A Type Primer as part of further research, I gained further insight

into the structure of typography and how the book intends to demonstrate the

principals of letterforms. Learned from experience, reading and observation,

Kane teaches that typography is physical, that it evolved from handwriting, and how

type has evolved from metal press, to photoset type, moving into digital type that

the majority of designers use nowadays. What I found interesting was how Kane explained that there are no set rules for

creating successful typography, instead it is based on a system of principles that, if

used effectively, will make the typography work and will make it useful. The way of

knowing whether it works/it is useful is only through direct observation. Designers use

type as a response to create a message to their audience or to a medium of some

description.

A Type Primer

8VO: On the Outside by Lars Muller

8vo is a graphic design partnership established in 1985. I photographed a book I found in the library about the collective entitled “8VO: On the

Outside”; it is a journal documenting the partnership’s projects and documents their production processes from 1985 through to 2001 when

8VO closed down. I chose this as my interesting examples of typography because looking through the book I found a range of striking visuals

and intruiging projects done by the collective. Many of the designs are minimalistic, however in a good way; the designs are presented in a very

clean cut way in order to be able to appreciate the visuals as best as possible. What also made me consider these designs interesting was how the use of colour is a prime aspect to the designs and helps to improve the

condition of the somwhat plain typeface; however I do like the simplicity of the type and how it is laid out compositionally adds to the effect. I also like how some of the designs are quite retro, but seem to follow a similar

house style - if the book were not set out in a timeline, it would potentially not be entirely clear which designs were from which decade because of

the consistency of the style.

8VO Typography

Salvador Dali was a surrealist painter mostly known for his abstract quality paintings and shocking imagination; a lot of his work is said to be set amongst the landscape of dreams

and inside the mind. These oil paintings shown here were small collages of his dream images. His work displays

classical technique, influenced by Renaissance artists and consist of strange hallucinatory characters. Researcher’s

say that Dali’s paintings were informed by pschoanalysitcal theories, such as Sigmund Freud. His major contribution

to the Surrealist Movement enhances these paintings.His paintings also evidence a fascination for Classical art,

clearly visible through his hyper-realistic style and religious symbolism, which I think is a key aspect - this makes his

paintings stand out from typical renaissance pieces of art. His work is also part of the surrealist movement which is one of the reasons I chose to study him for this project -

the bizarre, contorted feel to the paintings could inspire an abstract typeface consisting of elongated ascendors and descendors and distorted stem bars for different letters.

Images taken from http://www.dali-gallery.com/html/galleries/paintings.htmSalvador Dali

Images taken from http://www.artexpertswebsite.com/pages/artists/delaunay_r.php

Robert Delaunay is a French artist, and one who co-founded the ‘Orphism’ art movement - also known as ‘Orphic Cubism’, this artistic movement was an offshoot of cubism however focused purely on abstraction and vibrant colours. As an artist, he is noted for strong angular use of line and geometric colours. I chose to study him as part of this project because of his prominent use of shape, form and colour. Purely by looking at some of his designs it is easy to see letterforms emerging from the abstract shapes. Dealuanay’s work consists mostly of oil paintings, some more detailed than others; for example the two large images shown above are much more bold and contrasting than the one on the bottom left for instance. The vivd colours are also what make Delaunay’s work stand out; he uses specific colour scheme’s in each different piece, sometimes they clash, sometimes the colours compliment eachother. Compositionally the pieces of work are often quite busy, this is one technique that will not necessarily be transferred through to the typeface that is made from his work because of problems it would create with legibility.

Robert Delaunay

Malevich was a Russian painter and Art theoretician, known for his strong geometrical abstract paintings and the founder of the art movement known as the “Avante-Garde Suprematist Movement” - Avante-Garde being work that is experimental or innovative, and suprematist focusing on basic geometry, shapes, lines and contours painted with a limited colour scheme and being expressive. By looking at the works shown here it is clear how his work displays both of these factors.

Images taken from http://www.kazimir-malevich.org/

Like the other artists I chose, looking at Malevich’s work gives direct inspiration for typographic forms through shape and composition. What also stands out in these pieces is how some of them

are compositionally full; whereas others display negative space and areas that are free of shape and colour. Some of his paintigs derive from aerial view photography and aviation, something

Malevich was interested in. When you look closer at some of his abstractions, you can see how some of them could potentially represent a landscape from a birds-eye view as such. Malevich

also uses different texture and shading to make each piece slightly different; the piece above has more tonal quality than the one on the bottom left for example.

Kazimir Malevich

Images taken from http://www.cheimread.com/artists/claude-viallat/

Viallat is a French contemporary painter. Upon seeing his work I immediately thought this collection of paintings would be a good set to use to transcribe to a font; by looking at the shapes in his paintings I can already see potential letterforms. What I like about his work is the pastel appearance and the subtle colours used in his work. The recurring motif of the abstract rectangle shape makes his work instantly recognizable and gives the paintings a continuous theme. I think the texture used in his work is also a prominent feature; however I will be focussing mostly on shape and colouring when I transcribe this artist work into a typeface.

Claude ViAllat

Alexander Rodchenko was a Russian artist, photographer and graphic designer, and was the founder of Constructivism, and Russian Design. Constructivism is artistic and architectural philosophy, and was in favour of using art for social purposes. Interestingly,

Rodchenko was strongly inspired by Malevich’s suprematist compositons as well as cubism and futurism. The graphic design shown here does differ entirely from Malevich’s work, but looking at the layout it is clear how Rodchenko used it as a basis to produce his

own work. These pieces are heavily typography based and to me look like war time propaganda or advertisements. One thing I notice immediately about this work is the strict colour scheme limitations for each piece; only one colour is used for each individual piece; this

makes the work different to the other artists I looked at.

Alexander Rodchenko

Fernand Leger was a French painter and sculptor. His style of painting followed the cubist approach primarily, but as his methods evolved he created a more figurative, populist style which enabled him to become an iniator of the pop art movement. Looking at his work here you can see why pop art was somehwat influenced by his style, the bold, vibrant compositions and simplified figures are one aspect that pop art is renowned for.

What is admirable about Leger’s work is how he depicts humans and abstract shapes in order to represent movement, in particular with the painting The Aircraft in the Sky, it appears done be a painting of mid motion subjects.The surrealism is also a prominent element of Leger’s work, as well as the architectural regerences such as the structured layout in each piece. Leger trained as an architectural draftsman in Paris before becoming a painter.

Images taken from http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/fernand-legerFernand Leger

Images taken from http://www.abramgamesposters.com/index.html

Abram Games was an iconic British Graphic designer from the 20th century. He was primarliy a poster artist and focused particularly on war time propaganda. Some recurring motifs featured in his work are hands, the uses of the colours black and red, and the airbrush tool was used throughout the majority of his poster design. Later on in his life, as printing techniques changed, so did Games’ style and approach to design. Silk screen printing and prominent flat colour became more featured in his work. Methods changed as printing techniques evolved, and his imagery became increasingly geometric.

ABRAM GAMES

Joe Gilmore

Joe Gilmore belongs to design firm Qubik. Gilmore was predominantly self taught. He did a HND in Graphic Design, and taught himself design through experience, designing websites, books. When being asked to do a job by a client, it would not be unusual for him to be asked to do something he’s never done before. He did 15 years solo work in Leeds as a Graphic Designer. Most of the work was involved with the Arts. His work is quite experimental, exciting, and he’s really into typography and book design. His favourite kind of design is art books - which is what he wants to do. He made a living by setting up his own business; he designed teaching materials for the architecture course at Leeds Met University, then got commission to design a children’s website for Channel 5 (1999/2000) which was a major commission. Over the years he gathered more clients, he did the Channel 5 children’s website for 5 years, showcased more galleries and gained more clients.

Qubik Design

Here I have done my first transcription, using Dali as an artistic influence. I started to experiment and draw out lettering. For this experiment I started off by simply drawing out the

letters in pencil. I looked at an array of Dali paintings and picked out various shapes which I considered could be used for letterforms. I tried to capture the obscurity of Dali’s style; the

unsual shapes, the out of proportion characters and the surreal use of lines. Once I was happy with the letters I had drawn I made them bolder using black fine liner. I initially created a

captial and lower case letter for the first few letters of the alphabet, then to experiment further I did a range of other letters to spell out Dali’s name. For this I used specific imagery from

the paintings, for example the elongated limb for the ‘L’, the melting violin for the ‘D’, and the distorted clockface for the ‘O’. This I think ties down the essence of the artists work through

the lettering. I think I was quite successful in the transformation of imagery to typeface for this particular artist, however I do realise there is a lack of continuity within the letters; this does not

necessarily make it less legible, but may make the font look more alternate and diverse.

Dali Experimentation

Here is it the transcribed font for Delaunay’s work, which is a lot more intricate than the first set of letters I did for Dali’s work. This time I wanted to imitate the methods used as well as shape and colour. Again I started off by drawing out the letters,

from looking at aspects of different works and picking out shapes which I deemed acceptable for a letterform. Once I had a selection I set to colouring the typeface in with oil pastel, something which Delaunay himself uses in his paintings. I coloured

in various abstract shapes to make them look more visually interesting, used contrasting colours for different sections and different strengths of oil pastel to enhance the shading techniques. I then enhanced the look of the lettering by outlining it - I feel this often helps to make it stand out more and should it be used as a typeface would make it more legible. If this should

be the font that I choose to develop into a full alphabet then I will choose a certain style (as the styles shown right are all different) and follow this style throughout the alphabet. I would also experiment further with texture to find the best way of

presenting this typeface.

DelAunaY Experimentation

As I am trying to incorporate a range of media experiments within this project, I decided to do this next set of typographic experiments digitally. To do this I created a series of samples done in Illustrator. Using different shape tools and colour selection I compiled different letters together. Each letter was influenced by a different composition, order of shapes and combinations of colour. I do quite like this collection of letters and think they are a good symbol of Malevich’s work. Like his paintings, these letterforms are geometrical composites however ordered in a specific manner to make out lettering. Although less legible than my other typographic experiments, I feel this is one of the more successful sets in terms of representing the researched artist, and I feel I have captured Malevich’s form and technique within these letters.

Malevich Experimentation

Here is my transcribed font for Viallat’s work. I continued to use different media to my prior experi-ments, so I used marker pens to create this alphabet. What I wanted to acheive with this experiment was a legible alphabet that formed a similar shape to the abstract rectangle that features in almost every piece of his work. I tried to create a similar ‘tiled’ effect to the piece shown above, setting each letter an even space apart and above/below. I used a simplistic colour scheme, as I didn’t want the alphabet to be to similar to my previous experiment which was extremely vibrant. I used a simple alternate blue-green colour scheme, similar to the one shown in the image above. I feel this type set worked quite well so if I choose to pursue this experiment the lettering will be refined and made into lowercase as well.

Viallat Experimentation

Here is my inspired type for Rodchenko’s Russian constructivist work. I created an alphabet using similar shapes to the typography used in the adverts I looked at. Again I used mixed media by first drawing the lettering in pencil then using marker pen to outline and shade it. The process is shown above. I think the appearance of the overall typeface works quite well as a transcription of Rodchenko’s work.

Rodchenko Experimentation

Here I have transcribed a font using Leger’s work as inspiration. I tried yet another technique to keep my media for this project widespread. For this font I used collage. I printed out pieces of Leger’s work and ripped up the paper into small squares. I spread them out across a page in my sketchbook and started to draw into them. I used the abstract shapes to form each letter and using marker pen boldened the outlines to make each letter stand out. I particularly like how the colours fill the letters; I admire Leger’s choice of colour shceme and how the primary colours mixed with the bold outlines shape the typeface. I did one composite for each letter of the alphabet. Overall I think the alphabet looks visually appealing.

Leger Experimentation

LEGER Experimentation

After experimenting with a range of artists I have selected the three that I feel are most successful in terms of capturing the personality of the artist in the transcription, and the ones that look most visually appealing. The first one I chose was the Rodchenko inspired font. I think this was one of my more successful transcriptions and I feel the need to develop it further because I think a lot more

can be done with it. The Malevich typeface I will look at breaking it up and making the different shapes into a series of letters rather than just individual letters, I will also look at re-creating this with different materials such as collage. Finally, the Leger typeface I feel could developed further by digital manipulation, so I will look at evolving each of these to figure out what will work best.

Refinement

Here I have refined my Leger font and assembled the letters to make the artist name. I showed the font in a range of different sizes. I then experimented with

different styles of font; in Photoshop I tried different effects. I initially embossed the font and removed the edges. I then tried extrusion which had quite a

different effect but it looked quite interesting. The invert technique looked the most effectve though, I first made the photo black and white and then inverted

the colours so that it showed up white upon a black background. I like how abstract this font is, and how the letters have been derived from shapes taken from existing Fernand Leger paintings. Although I like this font I think it is quite

intricate and when looking at the smaller versions of even just the one letter makes it hardly legible, so a combination of letters in small size would probably

be unreadable. The other thing I like about this font is the presence of colour, although when I refine the fonr further I think I will focus more on the shape and legibility. I think one thing to look at would be the temoval of the background so

just drawing out pure letterforms, using the same shapes as I have done here however using the letter only. This way the shapes within the letters will still be

derived from shapes in Leger’s paintings.

LEGER Refinement

With the Leger font I have refined it further in two different ways. The first method I chose to do was to draw out the font without the coloured collage backgrounds, which I did by looking at the shapes I’d chosen and sketching them out. This way the shapes used in the lettering were still done using shapes found in Leger’s work but are perhaps more clear without the background. The second approach I did was to look at Leger’s work and pick out eight elements that I thought were prominent in his paintings. Once chosen I drew out the elements and created the typeface purely out of those shapes. This was to make the font more consistent. Although I like the abstract version of the font, I feel consistency is something that should be an aspect of a typeface to help with the presentation. Here you can see my drawings of the eight different elements and how I included each different shape in the alphabet I drew out. I like both thtese sets of fonts however if I were to choose one to use it would be the more consistent one, because I think it looks more sharpened and finished than th e first set of lettering.

Further Leger Refinement

With the Rodchenko inspired typeface I simply drew out the font in a way that was compositionally different to the inital typeface. I drew out each individual letter instead of having them all joined together, they were drawn more inidivually rather than structurally. I then tried out the font in a variety of sizes to make sure the font was legible and it was. I then went on tho experiment with styles but these were not done digitally like the previous typeface; instead I hand drew the different styles which were bold, italic, outlined and embossed. The hand drawn embossed effect is quite different to the digital technique but I actually prefer the hand drawn version because it looks less processed.

I think that this font have developed as far as it can. I feel that is is an accurate transcription from the original artist and Russian Constructivist style, howeverI don’t think I can experiment with it much further. I also prefer my other typefaces as I feel they are more visually interesting and colourful whereas this font is quite minimalistic, which, in some cases is a good aspect of design, in particular typography, but I think the font needs to be more exciting than this. Considering it is inspired by a compleletly different and unique art movement than the others explains why it is different.

Rodchenko refinement

This is my refined typeface inspired by Malevich. I decided to re-create it by hand rather than in Illustrator initially to get an idea of how shape would be used within the type. I drew out each letter and then using primary colour markers (primary colours being the colour scheme for the majority of Malevich’s work), I integrated various shapes into the typeface. I think this looked quite effectivel; the colours make the typeface more attractive and alive whereas the bold lettering keeps the font structured and readable. I did the experimentation for a single letter which consisted of looking at the font in various sizes and styles; here I did the same hand drawn style experiments as the previous font: bold, italic, outline and emboss.

I want to enhance this font further. To do this I will attempt to make the font more consistent, not necessarily with the shapes of the let-

ters but more to do with the integrated coloured shapes. I think to improve the font I can make the shapes more related to each other

letter, for example for all the letters that include green shapes; use the same shape and position for each letter, and so on. This

way the font is less in dissarray and more formal. I think this is my favourite typeface so far so I will create a vector or this alphabet.

Malevich Refinement

I chose to further refine my Malevich font because I think it is the most succesful set of lettering I have done so far. I used the font as a basis to create a vectorised version of

this font. I used the pen trace tool to outline each individual letter initially, then added the extra line and coloured shapes to the typeface. The coloured shapes I think really

helped to enhance the typeface because they make it look more quirky and retro. I think the added line to each letter makes the font look more individual. I used the original

drawing as a rough guideline because I refined the shapes to make the font more fluid.

The other things that differ from the original drawing is the shapes of the letters. They are more sharper than the original drawings. What I like about this typeface is how I have managed to capture Malevich’s art personality within the lettering. Out of all the experiments I tried earlier in this project, I think this one is the most effective in transcribing the artist style and technique into the lettering. I think further developments to this font in colour, size etc will make it more usable for the design for the font company.

FURTHER Malevich Refinement

Here I have altered the font slightly by removing the fluxes on each letter to see if it made the font more legible or just overall more visually appealing. I kept the geometric shapes as I think this is essential to the design of the typeface in order to relate it to the artist Malevich. I do like the alphabet both with the fluxes and without; I feel the font looks more quirky with the fluxes. I will refine this font again, because I came to the conclusion that the fluxes are somewhat in dissaray, as in they need refining to make the typeface as a whole look more uniform. Here I also sampled the font in black and white, as the brief specifies that the company Font Bureau require the font in full colour and black and white. The font still works when fully saturated and not saturated as there are still different shades of colour that can be seen in the black and white font.

This is a lowercase version of the Malevich alphabet I did after creating the original. It was also done in Illustrator using different lines and curves to make up the shapes of the letters. As the uppercase letter set is very cutting edge and

mostly straight, angular letters, I created this with the view to it looking more curved and obscene as a more unique set of letters. I used the same coloured geometric shapes as in the uppercase letters. Although I’ve used similar codes

and conventions to the uppercase typeface I don’t appreciate this one as much, mostly because I think it looks slightly crude although I do believe this links well to Malevich’s work.

Further Malevich Refinement

WITH FLUXES

WITHOUT FLUXES

BOLD

BLACK & WHITE

OUTLINE

LOWERCASE

Here are some typeface experiments I did with the Malevich font. I simply wrote out ‘Malevich’ in each style of font I created. The first was the typeface with fluxes. When

placed next to the same word without fluxes, you can see a big difference not in legibility but in how clean and minimalistic the font is in general. I do prefer the typeface

with fluxes because it looks more individual rather than just using the geometry. I also created an emboldened version, along with an outlined version. I think both of these

look interesting as another variation of the typeface however when considering the downloadable pdf I think I will include the font both uppercase and lowercase and in full

colour and black and white only.

As I decided to progress with the style of font that included the fluxes, I felt it could be improved in a few different ways. Several letters included in the fluxed alphabet were not attached to the fluxes, and thought this could be improved by changing their position. This was to make the letterforms as a whole appear more unifrom and intact. The letters without the fluxes attached looked quite out of place amongst the other letters so I did some simple experimentation by moving them around in Illustrator to see where they looked best. The results are shown here; I have taken out the letters which had no fluxes attached and have shown what they were, and what they are now. I think the letters as they are now do look better; they fit in with the rest of the alphabet more and I think they look more refined. With some of the letters, ie ‘W’ it occured to me that the letter would look better if the flux was taken out completely, as the letter itself contained a lot of lines crossing over and intercepting, so with the added lines it looked messy. The letter as it is now is much more sharper. These new letters will replace the old ones in my Malevich typeface.

Further Malevich Refinement

Here is the structure of my font laid out in sentence form. By using the standard phrase containing each letter of the alphabet, we are able to see how efficient the font is by looking at how it works in terms of legibility, kerning and spacial aspects. I produced the sentence in both colour and black and white. I think as a whole the font works quite well, I was concerned that the shapes and the fluxes would distract from legibility and perhaps would have looked messy, but I don’t think this is the case here. The ammendments I made to the letters containing unnatached fluxes has made a difference to the success of this font by making it look more consistent in form. Having created a successful typeface I will now proceed to using the typeface to make the promotional material that is required for this brief.

Structure

FINALIZED TYPEFACE

Advertisements

Here I have researched some exemplary advertisements for typefaces to gain some inspiration. Each advert I looked at contained the title of the font written in the typeface itself, as well as sample text within the layout. The layouts of these are very editorial, containing various shapes and colours to attract the eye, and in the case of the Cooper Black advert, a witty strapline “It’s black. It’s back.” The neue Helvetica poster is actually made up of a series of combined Helvetica letters in order to make up the background.

Advertisement DevelopmentThis shows the developing stages

I took to create my own font advertisement. I initially created the

imagery shown on the right hand side using similar codes and conventions

to the advertisments I researched only presenting it in my own style. I included the font both large and

small, as well as information about what the typeface could be used for. I thought I could further enhance this design and make it more interesting

and individual, so decided to incorporate some photography into the advertisment. Using an external

flash gun on my digital camera, I took this photo of a man holding up a sheet of A3 paper. I then pasted

the design on top and edited the background of the photograph to

make it appear as a solid colour. I also enhanced the colours slightly.

I think using the photography for the advert definitely makes it more

interesting rather than it just being the imagery on it’s own.

This is the advertisement I created to promote the font. I wanted the layout of the advert to be very clean and geometric. I used the enlarged ‘M’ for Malevich to be the focal point of the advert; I think the negative space used for this makes the lettering look in a way iconic, because of the layout it gives the letter a pure space to be advertised. I included the font name “Malevich’, keeping it the same width as the letter ‘M’ so that the design looks tidy. I then used a green square similar to the one used in the ‘M’ and placed it under the font name, same width, upon which I wrote a section of text explaining the typeface’s usage, it’s influences and it’s purpose. As the design itself was minimalistic I decided to enhance it with photography. Using an external flash gun I photographed someone holding up the advert, as a way of showing how the type can be used for everyday purposes. I enhanced the photo by altering the clothing colour to be the same shade of green as used in the poster.

AdVertisement

Font Bureau Specimen Books

These are some examples of Font Bureau’s previous specimen book covers. The work features large lettering as the focal point of the book cover, using bold, solid colours in order to generate a contrast between the letter and the background. The second book creates some interesting shapes through enlargement of the quotation marks. Each book seems to have a colour scheme motif of red, black and white which either one or all three are used for the different covers. They all also have the title ‘Font Bureau’ featured on them all however the logo changes as the books progress. The layout is simple yet effective in its approach to conveying a message about what the theme of the books are. These factors will contribute to my own book cover design which will be developed in the next few stages of this project.

Book Cover Development

This is the developing stages of my book cover design. I started off by importing a single letter from my alphabet into the composition and experimenting with different layouts. I tried to use influence from the style of the original Font Bureau books by using the enlarged letters to create various shapes within the book cover. I then extended the letter to include the Font Bureau logo. I chose a neutral colour for the background to keep in tone with the colour scheme I used for this project.

I designed a book cover for the Font Bureau Type Specimins series. I looked at previous editions of the book and tried to follow a similar style however I did not want to make a direct copy of the design so I made it more original. I used an enlarged letter taken from my created alphabet, the ‘H’ and used shapes to extend it to make the title of the book. I kept the colour scheme relatively simple, not wanting to sidetrack from my previous designs. I made the book out to be the ‘Artist Typeface Edition’ to represent the series inspired by Artists, Designers and Art Movements. I then created a mock up of my typeface included in book format.

Book Cover

The next form of promotion to be designed was the webpage. The webpage was to be presented in the same format as the font bureau website. I looked

at the font section on the font bureau site and looked at individual listed fonts. Once I gathered the house style and layout of the website I integrated my font into the layout of the website, and wrote a description of information beside the font much like in the font section of Font Bureau’s website. They

have a list of linked fonts down the side and related artists.

Webpage

Sample SHeets

I continued my research by looking at examples of font sample sheets to gain insight of the sort of thing that features in them before I make my own. The ones shown here were laid out in different ways; the first one using strange sentences to show how the font works as a structure. The second one samples all the letters and characters before sampling the typeface in different sizes. The others use various layouts to present the font in a clear cut way. These considerations will be used when I create my own sample sheet. They all include negative space in the background so the font is contrasted and clearly legible so people get to view the font in the best way possible.

Here is the sample sheet and the finalized version of the font I created. The sample sheet will be in the format of a ‘downloadable pdf’ which hypothetically if it was used as a font for Font Bureau, it would be used for people to view the font in this format before downloading. I included the title of the font, the finalized alphabet and then the sentence structure using every letter in the alphabet, shown in both colour and black and white. Below I have also shown the specified font sizes that the brief requires.

Sample Sheet

In response to this brief I began by researching typography in general to gather ideas and gain a collection of styles and influences for this project. I created a mind map of ideas and a mood board of images consisting of typography to sum up my initial thoughts deriving from the brief. I then began to look at a range of artists - mainly well established, historical artists that were involved in major movements over the centuries, for example Cubism, Constructivism and Futurism. I particularly liked the Suprematist Art Movement which was founded by Russian Artist Kazimir Malevich. I analysed their work to get an understanding of their style, technique and composition. After this I transcribed their methods into different font of my own creation, using elements of their work to create various inspired fonts. The typeface’s that I created were directly informed by the form, colour and function of the artist’s work, and were representations of their work. I looked at eight artists in total, experimented with different methods of creating typography. From this I evaluated the success of each typeface and narrowed it down to the three most successful from which I created the full alphabet. The most successful was produced in full colour and then made into the required specifications; the front cover, the downloadable sheet and the web page as well as the advertisement. Overall I think this project was successful. I feel the font I created worked well in terms of reflecting the artist through typographic forms. I particularly think the advertisement for the font worked successfully as a way of promoting the font I created.

Evaluation